Tapes (both cassette and VHS)--the dominant means of media storage for my entire childhood--are dead and buried, considered low-quality relics. (Yet in a twist of fate, the format THEY replaced--the phonograph record--is experiencing a resurgence).

I guess time just moves on. Consider that Jurassic Park is almost 20 years old, Labyrinth and the NES are both 25, and even a cheap cell phone is a more powerful computer than the "family PC" in high school. We're relics of the previous century.

Thomas wrote:I felt old when I turned 25 a few months back. I'm a quarter a fucking century old!!!!

I'm turning 25 at the end of the month. I'm pretty freaking happy, since my auto insurance is going down 40%!

Also, some of you have been visiting this website for more than 10 years. Family members that I remember being born are now driving automobiles. Chicks I fooled around with in high school have 6-year-old children. If I were my dad, I'd have three kids, a wife and a mortgage at this point in my life.

pixel wrote:I'm turning 25 at the end of the month. I'm pretty freaking happy, since my auto insurance is going down 40%!

My Auto insurance dropped around 30% when I turned 25. However, last year my lovely insurance company Peel Mutual Insurance whom I've been with the last 3 years, refused to renew my auto insurance policy because of 3 tickets I received in the last 3 years, which all resulted from conveniently placed radar traps.

Now 27, I went from paying $203 a month to $353 a month just for auto insurance because I'm "high risk", even though I've been driving since I was 16 without any at fault claims. My current rate is the same as when I started out paying for auto insurance when I was 16.

I now pay close attention to speed postings and constantly set my cruise control whenever I drive, even in short trips. This whole system just doesn't work, but there's not anything more I can do now except drive like grandpa all the time and piss off everyone behind me.

pixel wrote:I'm turning 25 at the end of the month. I'm pretty freaking happy, since my auto insurance is going down 40%!

My Auto insurance dropped around 30% when I turned 25. However, last year my lovely insurance company Peel Mutual Insurance whom I've been with the last 3 years, refused to renew my auto insurance policy because of 3 tickets I received in the last 3 years, which all resulted from conveniently placed radar traps.

Now 27, I went from paying $203 a month to $353 a month just for auto insurance because I'm "high risk", even though I've been driving since I was 16 without any at fault claims. My current rate is the same as when I started out paying for auto insurance when I was 16.

I now pay close attention to speed postings and constantly set my cruise control whenever I drive, even in short trips. This whole system just doesn't work, but there's not anything more I can do now except drive like grandpa all the time and piss off everyone behind me.

My reccomendations:

1. Kick your former insurance agent in the nuts/vagina until he or she gives your insurance back.
2. Move to the middle of nowhere.
3. Befriend the local police department.

Hmm... Let's see what I grew up with here: Analog TVs (my first TV was black and white!), radio, vinyl records, Cassette Tapes, VHS, CDs, typewriter (manual Royal & electric), Floppy-based PC programs, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1/9x, cartoons that are now either exclusive to late night premium cable or I haven't seen them in years, sitcoms, actual scripted TV, lots of angst-filled distorted 90s rock, and several obsolete 8/16/32-bit video game consoles.

I also got to use an icebox for a couple weeks as a kid when our refrigerator's cooling system started to fail. It was definitely a bitch to find blocks of ice like that in 2002, hahaha.

I think I'm too much of a contradiction to be considered a relic, but I think that I'll be ready to be one by the time I'm yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

I remember my mum tracking down a Tamagotchi because she worked at Toys R Us, and I was the coolest kid in primary school for a week.

A few years later I remember getting a Furby through similar means and being really excited because nobody else could get one, but something about the toy's shitness drained the enthusiasm from me between Christmas and going back school, literally becoming the catalyst that helped me grow up out of toys. I never told anyone I owned one. Not only that, but for the same Christmas my parents had got me and my sister tickets to see the Spice Girls (!!!) on tour the following summer. In giving up on toys, I also gradually gave up on mainstream pop music, and ended up giving the ticket to my sister's friend.

To be honest, I don't think I ever liked the Spice Girls' music. It was just the first time I'd ever been sexually attracted to a woman. I vividly remember buying their photobook at the supermarket then abusing the pages because it was all I had.

I also remember really wanting a pager because some of my classmates had them, despite the fact they did absolutely nothing unless somebody called an extremely expensive number using a landline phone.

I pay between $300 and $400 every six months, for a total of about $750 a year. Of course, I don't have very comprehensive coverage on my car--it was $10,000 *new* (2007 Hyundai Accent), so I figure any serious wreck will likely total it anyway. Most of my insurance is liability coverage.

Is that completely legitimate, or have you bent some rules to get better rates?

I would assume it's legitimate since I have PLPD coverage on both my wife's car and my truck for $56 a month.

No, it isn't. New Orleans have some of the highest, if not the highest, rates in the country because of the drinking culture. When I was 18, I paid $270 a month just for liability. Now, I pay $200 every 6 months for liability because my dad's girlfriend has a house in Alabama, so I have it registered there with Alabama insurance and an Alabama plate.

I still can't drive. I have a summer birthday, so I was the last person in my year to become old enough to drive - so I missed out on car-ownership status anyway. Once the novelty wore off all my friends started complaining about how 100% of their part-time job money went into road tax, gas, and crippling 17-year-old insurance. I figured university wasn't far off so just gave up on the whole idea.

BoneyCork wrote:I still can't drive. I have a summer birthday, so I was the last person in my year to become old enough to drive - so I missed out on car-ownership status anyway. Once the novelty wore off all my friends started complaining about how 100% of their part-time job money went into road tax, gas, and crippling 17-year-old insurance. I figured university wasn't far off so just gave up on the whole idea.

While I don't regret my decision, it makes me feel like a tard.

I'm in the same boat, though me not being able to drive is more because nobody wants to teach me and driving school here is pretty expensive.

BoneyCork wrote:I still can't drive. I have a summer birthday, so I was the last person in my year to become old enough to drive - so I missed out on car-ownership status anyway. Once the novelty wore off all my friends started complaining about how 100% of their part-time job money went into road tax, gas, and crippling 17-year-old insurance. I figured university wasn't far off so just gave up on the whole idea.

Except for the summer birthday bit (I was born in spring, not quite as bad), this was pretty much my take on it. Cars are an expensive and dirty pain in the ass. I learned how in high school, but never bothered to test for my license, because I didn't want to get stuck running errands and taking my brother places all the time, and I didn't actually need the car for any of my own stuff (I walked/biked everywhere).

I didn't get my license until I was 24, and even then it was only because I needed a car for work.